Technology has a long history of erasing all sorts of boundaries in quantum leaps. Firstly, it has made travelling fast and easy. Secondly, it has developed a variety of means of communication that enable humanity to connect and feel close even while being thousands of miles apart. Now tech is ready to tear down the language barrier in the most seamless and convenient way. How is it going to work? Let’s dive deeper into the topic.
The Problem with Translation
Today humanity is globalised like never before. We can make friends with people from all over the world, find the love of our lives in foreign countries, organise communities that include individuals from all continents, get a job abroad or conquer new regions with our businesses. But we still have to hire translation services when we cannot speak the same language, and it significantly slows communication down. And not everyone can hire a translator or wants a third party in their conversation. It means, a lot of potential friendships, partnerships or other possibly fruitful connections do not even have a chance to happen.
AI as the Solution
Thanks to the impressive advancement of technology in the last decade, artificial intelligence (AI) is currently assisting and displacing human effort across almost all existing industries from marketing to cinema. Often it means liberating people from the most routine tasks and giving them the opportunity to concentrate on more complex and demanding work.
Translation is also impacted by the development of machine learning and AI, and these changes promise to liberate us from the limitations of the language barrier, therefore revolutionizing how we live and work. We have been working on this at YOUS, a communication tool with a built-in AI translator that enables anyone to understand and speak a foreign language during chats, audio, and video calls, and we already see the differences it makes.
Freedom of Personal Communication
Translation goes real-time even for audio and video calls, thus making all communications involving two or more languages simpler and more enjoyable, be it with your friends, colleagues or other acquaintances. It means stronger relationships, more connections, better networking and less loneliness and social isolation.
Lack of necessity to hire a translator may motivate people to seek better consultancy in sensible areas when involving a stranger is uncomfortable. For example, when a health situation requires counselling by a foreign medical expert. Sometimes it is not even a matter of choice. For example, in the U.S. there are 25 million Spanish-speaking adults who cannot access quality health care because of the language barrier.
Access to Knowledge and Better Awareness
While the global population has reached 7.87 billion, there are still only 1.3 billion people who speak English. It means billions of people cannot access knowledge provided by the most prominent universities in the world, the international scientific community, best-selling nonfiction authors, etc. Those who speak English but do not speak, for example, Spanish (543 million speakers) or Hindi (600 million total speakers) are limited in the information they can access too.
AI translators are making prospects of global education and knowledge sharing much more promising. Besides, if one can access news in all languages and is able to discuss it with a wide international community, they are capable of better understanding the world and fellow humans. In such an environment cultural differences that sometimes tear our society apart will not be such a problem anymore.
Smoother International Growth for Businesses
With AI translators expanding a business internationally becomes smoother and less costly. With their assistance, a language barrier does not require spending money on hiring human translators for important meetings, and communication goes more naturally and faster. International teams will be stronger and more bonded because there will be fewer miscommunications and misunderstandings. Studies show that in multinational corporations language barriers negatively impact employees’ psychological well-being, trust formation, and interpersonal connections while in fields like aviation they may even endanger safety.
AI translators can also significantly improve communications with customers on every level. By using them, marketing campaigns easily go multilingual with lower expenses. It has the potential to revolutionise customer service with chatbots being able to assist clients in all languages existing at any time. Chatbots are already popular in the business world and save up to 30 percent in customer support costs for companies that have implemented them but the potential is much higher.
We are living in astonishing times when technology is enhancing all aspects of our lives. It is now revolutionizing global communication for a better world. Entrepreneurs can push these improvements with tech products as well as use these advancements to strengthen their business.
